


through this disappearing land

by orphan_account



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:58:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue Sargent wakes up on Tuesday morning and forgets what she is dreaming about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	through this disappearing land

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishafel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/gifts).



Blue Sargent wakes up on Tuesday morning and forgets what she is dreaming about. Her blankets are twisted around her like she's been struggling. There's a thin layer of chill sweat slicking her skin. Blue's not thinking about blood, but there's some on her skin anyway.

An old cut has opened during the night. Blue rolls out of bed, into several layers of skirts and looks for a band-aid. She doesn't find one, just Persephone and her mother.

"I've got some yarrow you can put on that." Persephone tells her.

Blue steals her cup of tea and grimaces at the taste. "I'm not going to do that. I have to go to school."

"Watch out for crows." Her mother advises her.

»

Blue makes it through the day at school, picking at the edges of the band-aid she'd gotten off the lady in the office. It's bright blue, meant for the hospitality students.

Gansey picks her up when she's two blocks away from Monmouth Manufacturing. Ronan's in the front seat, white-framed sunglasses sliding down his nose. Blue sits next to Adam. Her knees push against Ronan's seat. She doesn't say anything, but Adam does.

"Ronan, move your seat forward."

And Ronan does, without any argument or even a sly comment. Blue casts a sidelong glance at Adam, but he's staring at the back of Gansey's head.

"Where are we going?" Blue asks after five minutes of driving, and three minutes of Ronan flicking through every radio station without settling on one for more than ten seconds. Gansey catches her eye in the rear-view mirror.

"I thought we could have a picnic." He says seriously. Ronan snorts. Blue stares.

"A picnic?" She asks when it becomes apparent no-one else is going to.

"Yes, a picnic. Have you gone deaf, Jane?" Gansey asks, still in that ridiculously mocking serious tone.

Blue's surprised into silence by the Pig ceasing all movement.

"Seriously?" Ronan says, amusement dulling the bite in his voice. Gansey thumps the dashboard once.

Blue leans forward into the gap between Ronan and Gansey. "So can you fix it?"

"Adam might be able to." Ronan says. Blue flicks a glance his way - that is the first thing he had says all afternoon that didn't have an undercurrent of venom to it. She turns to Adam.

"I might be able to." Adam replies to the unasked question with his gaze fixed firmly out the window. "But I might not be able to. It seems pretty dead to me."

Gansey nods. "Yeah, it's not doing anything." He turns the key again for emphasis.

"So now what?" Blue asks the car at large.

Of course, Gansey is the one who answers. "We have our picnic here."

"Here?" Adam asks, finally tearing his gaze from the fields out the window.

'Here' is the unkempt nature strip beside the Camaro. Gansey lays down a tartan blanket and sets his cane picnic basket pride of place. He sits down cross legged and gestures for them to follow. Blue and Adam do, not half so gracefully. Ronan leans against the side of the Pig.

»

Blue probably shouldn't have been surprised by the contents of Gansey's picnic basket. She probably should have been surprised by the fact that there is a boy her age that actually _had_ a picnic basket, but it went well with his boat shoes. In Blue's limited experience of picnics, the food consisted of peanut butter smeared thickly of slices of brown bread, or salad sandwiches if they were lucky, with bottles of water filled from the tap at home and a thermos of herbal tea. Not turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce and brie - _focaccia_ , Gansey corrected her. Not bottles of mineral water, and definitely not chocolate-chip cookies. Blue would have suspected Gansey of making them, but they were still in the packet.

Judging from the way Adam is trying to keep his sandwich together enough to bite it - a feat Gansey managed with ease – Blue guesses his experience had probably been much the same.

Ronan doesn't eat anything. He drinks half a bottle of mineral water and lies down on the grass in silence, scraping at the label of his bottle with bitten fingernails.

Gansey eats with his mouth open. Blue can't help but watch in morbid fascination. She also can't quite disguise her laugh into a cough when a stray piece of turkey escapes Gansey's mouth and slides down the front of his shirt. Ronan snorts as well. So he is awake behind those sunglasses. Gansey turns to him and very deliberately shows Ronan the contents of his mouth. Blue turns to Adam, an unspoken invitation to laugh with her, but he is staring at the food in his hands, seemingly lost in thought.

Ronan leans up onto his elbows and throws a cookie at Adam's bent head. He connects with his target perfectly. Blue ducks as Adam retaliates with his entire sandwich.

»

Their side of the road picnic is rapidly devolving into a full-scale food war when Declan pulls up alongside the Pig.

He takes in the scene with a stern face. Blue tries to surreptitiously remove the cheese that had been mushed into her hair.

"Ronan, we had an appointment."

With an equally impassive face, Ronan picks up the remains of Gansey's sandwich and lobs it at his brother. Blue holds her breath as a slice of turkey makes its slow passage down the lapels of Declan's expensive suit.

"Whoops." Ronan says. Blue wishes he'd take off the sunglasses.

Declan's lips tighten to white. "I'll see you Sunday." He climbs back into his pristine care and takes off, gravel crunching under his tires.

"Ronan." Gansey says. His tone is aiming for discipline but Blue can tell he is trying hard not to laugh. She can't tell if Ronan knows or not. He slams the car door behind him when he gets back into the Pig.

"He could have at least helped us clean up." Blue grumbles, going to her knees on the tartan blanket.

"It's Ronan." Gansey says, raising his eyebrow meaningfully. "When has he ever helped?"

»

"We haven't done anything to fix it, though." Adam protests.

Gansey turns the key. The Pig roars to life, vibrating the floor under Blue's sandal-clad feet.

"Maybe it just needed to cool down?" Blue asks. Adam frowns. Ronan says: "Who cares?"

»

Back at the warehouse, Ronan hurries into his room to check on Chainsaw. Blue follows. "I'm borrowing a shirt." She informs him. Ronan grunts at her.

Making sure his attention is firmly focussed on Chainsaw and her nest, Blue drops her stained shirt on the ground and slides Ronan's over her head just as Noah materialises.

"Oh!" He flickers for a moment. Blue reaches over and touches his wrist. The energy transfer leaves her arm cold, but Noah is as solid as she is by the end of it.

"Where have you been?" Ronan asks, still bent over Chainsaw and her newly created nest. Chainsaw 'krrrrk's at the sight of Noah.

"Around." Noah replies, gesturing vaguely at the air. "I kept an eye on her for you."

Ronan scoops Chainsaw up. "Thanks." he says, not meeting Noah's eyes. He leaves the room without another word.

Blue looks at Noah. Noah shrugs. Twisting his face into a frown like Ronan had been sporting, he escorts Blue out of the room.

»

Ronan's t-shirt is too big for her. The neckline gapes, and Gansey looks like he is having trouble remembering English every time he glances her way.

Blue doesn’t mind.

Gansey drives Blue home, just the two of them and the roar of the Pig. Streetlights slide past, flicking the interior of the car with orange.

Blue leaves the car before temptation can get the better of her.

»

Ronan wakes up and the clock informs him it is 4.36 in the morning. So he's made it to Wednesday, middle of the week. Chainsaw is perched on the pillow next to his head, preening herself. Occasionally she leans over and runs her beak over Ronan's scalp. He hopes that was what woke him.

He'd been dreaming of blood and fire. There is a faintly metallic taste on his tongue. Ronan decides to ignore it. There's no blood in the room, on his skin. There's no smell of smoke, or of burning flesh.

Ronan sits up in bed and watches Chainsaw push her feathers into neat alignment by the light of the moon until it turns into the glare of the sun.

»

Ronan goes to all his classes on Wednesday. Chainsaw stays in his room, reinforcing her nest with woollen socks and stray pieces of cardboard. In Latin, Ronan doesn't volunteer a single answer, and ignores the looks Adam shoots him.

At lunchtime, Gansey monologues about another aspect of Glendower's quest he had apparently discovered last night while the rest of the country was sleeping.

"See, if you look here, the contour lines don't follow with what the aerial photos are showing." Gansey's covered the table with A4 printouts of maps and photographs, and he's pointing to a tiny place that looks like it could be a small hill, but also could be a lazy cartographer with a broad hand.

Gansey gives everything the benefit of the doubt.

Ronan's a bit more sceptical. "So you want us to hike out there just in case there's a magical hill with a clue that might lead you a little bit closer to Glendower."

It's not really a question, and Ronan knows he'll end up doing it anyway. They all will, because it's always been hard to deny Gansey anything.

"He's the one with the most, and yet I want to give him more." Adam had said once.

"Yes." Gansey says, beaming like Ronan just handed him the key to it all. Adam just shakes his head.

»

That night Ronan thinks, but not too hard, about Kavinsky.

He falls asleep and falls into a lake. The water is cold like a shock but Ronan clenches his teeth and makes himself stay asleep.

Breathing isn't a concern. Ronan's learnt not to worry about the mechanics of dreams. The water is murky. Ronan dives down in stages but the temperature doesn't change. The water stays the same.

He kicks and claws his way through the water. Ronan's never been a very strong swimmer but here he doesn't get tired, doesn't have to stop and inhale as much air as he can fit into his lungs before coughing it all back up.

It takes him roughly three hours to swim all the way down - not that Ronan's counting. It's easy to lose track of time underwater. There's no fish or plants, just the water until suddenly there's the ground.

Ronan drags himself through the water, walking along the bed of the lake. The mud sucks at his feet. It wants him to stay. Ronan works harder.

It's another half hour of walking before Ronan knows he's reached his destination. It's Kavinsky. Or at least his body, upright in the mud, his feet planted deep and his hair drifting upwards in slow waves. His sunglasses haven't floated off. Ronan reaches out.

In Kavinsky's fist is a key. It takes Ronan a few minutes to pry it out. The water has swollen Kavinsky's fingers to twice their size. The imprint of the key remains after Ronan takes it into his own hand.

Three minutes to midnight, Ronan gasps awake. He spits brackish water onto the floor beside his bed.

His clothes are dripping and in his hand is the key he’d dived to the bottom a dream lake for. Ronan doesn’t know what it unlocks. 

»

Adam wakes up groggy, feeling like he's been rubbing sand into his eyes. It's not an auspicious start to the day.

Breakfast at Monmouth Manufacturing improves matters slightly. At least, it distracts Adam from the ache in his neck and the way the cereal tastes odd with organic milk. Noah's nowhere to be seen. Even now, now that they all know, he's still weird around food. Adam spends a few mouthfuls wondering.

"I found this last night." Ronan’s voice is rough, like he's spent the past few hours chain smoking. There's no stale cigarette smell, but Adam wouldn't be surprised. Ronan's as bad as Gansey when it comes to sleeping regularly. At least with Ronan it's understandable, Adam allows.

"Found where?" Gansey asks, but his tone is the one he reserves for Glendower and Greywaren excitements. Adam wonders when he became the last one to know so often. 

"The bottom of a lake." Ronan answers. He drops the key onto the table. It's an old key; the kind used rich ladies in the nineteenth century to lock away their jewels from everyone but themselves and their servants. It's tinged faintly green. There is a thin plait attached to one end. The ends look like they've been burnt.

"What's it for?" Adam asks. Ronan shrugs.

"I have no idea."

"Maybe it's got something to do with the anomaly on the map!" Gansey says. He turns from his toast to rummage through the many sheets he has scattered over the floor.

"Maybe." Ronan doesn't sound very interested either way. Adam thinks Gansey is excited enough for the three of them - four if you count Noah. Adam sometimes forgets to.

»

It's Thursday, so after school Adam goes to work. Gansey and Ronan drop him off on their way to Blue's. Adam fixes a car, patches the hole in the muffler that was making such a racket. Adam wipes his hands on a rag, but the driver still doesn't shake hands. Adam laughs like it’s funny.

At Blue's, the three of them will be pouring over maps. Maybe Blue will have gotten Persephone or her mother to scry it for them. Not Calla, he knows. Calla is most likely staring at Ronan and muttering under her breath about snakes and danger. Ronan's probably grinning like he always does, like he's about to bite the head of a snake.

Adam shakes his head like he's clearing water from his ears and gets back to work.

That night, for the first night in a long time, Adam prays before bed. He doesn't kneel, just lies on his back and stares at the ceiling.

"Hey, God." Adam starts. He's whispering, mostly just mouthing the words because he doesn't think anyone else needs to know about this. "Um. How's it going? I'm sure you know how I am."

He clears his throat. It feels a bit like he's coming down with something. "I was just wondering. If you get the chance, I'd like to be able to see my mom again. Just. If you can."

»

Gansey doesn't wake up on Friday morning because he never fell asleep. He slept the night before. Five whole hours, enough to rejuvenate and reenergise him.

Gansey can’t remember the last time he had a dream. Besides, he says to himself, that’s really more Ronan’s territory.

He's showered, dressed and had enough coffee to jump start a car by the time Ronan stumbles out of his room, Chainsaw digging her talons into his bare shoulder. "Have a good sleep?" Gansey feels compelled to ask.

Ronan bares his teeth in a tigers smile.

Adam comes over a few minutes later. Gansey chooses not to ask how he slept – the shadows under his eyes say enough.

It's the last day of school. The summer holidays are an empty expanse before him. Soon, Gansey knows his phone will ring with his mother on the other end, a list of duties for him to complete over the summer, with returning home at the top. But for now, the possibilities stretch endless.

In view of this, Gansey decides to skip school and get started.

"Nobody does anything on the last day, Parrish." Gansey tries to convince him. This is probably the only time he's ever wished Adam was a little more like Ronan, who is already out of his uniform and halfway to the Pig. 

"Fine, but if we get in trouble you have to get us all out of it." Adam relents, shrugging off his blazer. He drapes it carefully over his chair. Gansey claps a happy hand on his shoulder. 

»

Blue is slowly eating her breakfast when they arrive.

"I thought skipping the last day was just something we public school delinquents did." She says when they trail behind Calla into the kitchen.

Calla sniffs and Ronan grins. Gansey decides to interrupt. "I thought we could get a head start on exploring that thing we were talking about."

Calla rolls her eyes and leaves the room. Blue dumps her bowl in the sink. "Alright. Do you think it will take all day? Because I don't know if I can handle another picnic."

»

This time Ronan climbs into the back next to Adam, leaving the front seat free for Blue. She winds the window down and lets her hair get tossed by the wind. Gansey tries to watch both her and the road.

Adam controls their direction from the backseat. He's got a road map spread out over his lap, with Ronan a reluctant holder of the aerial photos Gansey acquired. Adam's instructions lead them to private property.

"I don't think we're allowed to do this." Adam says as Gansey holds the fence up for them to all slip under. Blue's shirt catches on a barb, and Ronan disentangles her. Gansey's fingers itch.

Now that they are on foot, Gansey is in charge of the route. He leads the way through a large paddock empty of anything but a few bored sheep. His watch tells him it's a quarter past eleven when Gansey sights what they came here for.

"That's it?" Ronan doesn't sound half as thrilled. Even Gansey can admit it's nothing spectacular to look at. The hill is barely worth the name.

"Well, we didn't come here for the view." Blue says. She sounds a little disgruntled but mostly just out of breath. Gansey sneaks another glance at her flushed cheeks.

"It doesn't look natural." Adam says after a moment. He's right, Gansey realises with a rush of excitement. The sides are too smooth, too neat. Ronan wanders around to the other side.

"Why would anyone want to make a hill?" Blue wonders.

"To put something in it." Ronan calls out.

On the southern side there's a patch of grass that lifts easily away in a single sheet. It's absence reveals a small depression in the soil, lined with rocks. Sitting in the exact middle is a wooden box.

Gansey's phone beeps with a dying battery. Blue shivers and steps closer. Gansey allows himself to let their arms brush.

"Why not just bury it in the ground? Why make an entire hill just for this?" Adam asks as Gansey lifts the box out. Gansey doesn't have an answer.

It's heavy. Gansey puts it carefully on the grass. The box is stained a deep red, shining where Gansey wipes the dirt away.

"It looks like my mother's jewellery box." Ronan says flatly. Gansey glances up at him, but Ronan's turned away.

Gansey takes his handkerchief out and wipes down the box. The [absence] of dirt shows it to be in pristine condition. There's a design drawn in gold, all spirals and loops. It reminds Gansey of a vine. Bisecting the box and the design is a single sentence in black paint.

_ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt_

"What does it say?" Blue asks. Gansey looks to Ronan.

"Where are they, those who have gone before us?" There's a certain rhythm to his words when he speaks Latin that Gansey hasn't noticed before. Like his words are walking in state, slow ponderous steps weighed down with finery.

"Do you have the key?" Blue asks. Gansey nods and collects it from his pocket.

He holds his breath as he slides it into the lock. It goes smoothly and Gansey swallows. Gripping it a tiny bit tighter, he turns it.

Nothing happens.

"Well?" Ronan demands after a moment.

"It won't turn!" Gansey says, flustered. "I can't get it to go!"

"You're probably not doing it right." Blue crouches down beside him and tries it herself. Gansey's a little relieved when it doesn't work.

Adam tries next and Ronan last. Eventually they admit defeat. Gansey pockets the key and picks up the box. “We should probably get going.”

Blue nods. Adam replaces the grass, and tries to fit the edges as neatly as it had been.

Ronan waits until they are back in the car to ask: “So what the hell does this key unlock?”

»

Noah, for reasons he can't quite articulate, even to himself, waits until the others are asleep to examine the box they uncovered.

It takes a while. The moon is almost three-quarters through his arc by the time Gansey gives up on his cardboard city and heads to his room.

Gansey talks in his sleep, a jerk of his hand to emphasise a point known only to him. It makes Noah laugh, sometimes, the look on Gansey's face as he argues passionately with the population of his dream.

Noah watches Ronan sleep, preternaturally still. Noah feels a strange mix of desire and obligation to stand guard over his bed. Chainsaw seems to appreciate this; she raises her head and 'kerah's softly at him.

Adam is the loudest. He doesn't talk but communicates through exclamations and cries. His verbalisations change colour as his thoughts do - sometimes fear laces through, sometimes anger. Lately it's been mostly sorrow. Noah doesn't watch Adam sleep very much. Manifesting at the Church is sometimes harder than he feels it should be.

Noah's never seen Blue sleep.

His thoughts are wandering. Noah traces the golden spirals on the box. He doesn’t leave any fingerprints. His fingers feel strange, although when Noah examines them, they appear the same as they day he died. Picking the box up, Noah shakes it. There’s no rattling sound. There’s nothing to signify that the box contains anything at all. Flipping it over, Noah sees words carved into the base.

_tu fui ego eris_

Noah stands in the shadows of the converted warehouse with a frown on his smudged face. His body gets fainter as the sun gets stronger.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds _Red Right Hand_ on repeat while writing this, so that's where the title is from.
> 
> \- _tu fui ego eris_ = I was you; you will be me
> 
> Admittedly all Latin in this from google, so there may be errors.


End file.
